A small Texas-based company alleges that "Mindcraft" infringes on one of its many patents.

A company named Uniloc, which describes itself as "in the business of finding big ideas," has filed a suit against Minecraft developer, Mojang, claiming the Android edition of Mindcraft [sic] infringes on one of its patents. Similar suits have been leveled against EA, Square Enix and Gameloft.

The patent in question was filed in 2005, and is for "a system and method ... for preventing unauthorized access to electronic data stored on an electronic device." The vague patent, along with Uniloc's long history of patent litigation and its base in Texas (where state laws favor patent owners) have led many to label the company a "patent troll."

Mojang founder, Markus "Notch" Persson, is certainly unimpressed. He announced the lawsuit via an irreverent tweet and went on to state that Mojang would be facing down Uniloc on principle.

"Unfortunately for them, they're suing us over a software patent," he tweeted. "If needed, I will throw piles of money at making sure they don't get a cent."

I am starting to think that this kind of thing should be illegal and they should be persecuted. Obviously you should be able to defend a patent, but when people are obviously just buying patents to try to sue. That should not be allowed.

It basically assumes that some shithead that no one cares about invented something by writing an idea down on paper, and then a giant company, who has MILLIONS of dollars in R&D just somehow found his idea and stole it.

This guy was personally awarded $15 million of the total $388 million from the microsoft suit.

With 7 billion people on the planet, chances are 2 people might be working on the same thing at roughly the same time.

The guy doesn't even create working prototypes of any of his "inventions".

I should create a patent for "button that when pressed, does everything for you" and wait for some actual company to do the work, then swoop in and take a claim.

Anyway, Notch is certainly correct: he WILL throw piles of money at this. IP law is the most lucrative law. IP attorneys charge, at the bottom-medium end, around $500/hour. Patent cases go on forever. Notch could very well go Bankrupt just to win his patent. He's not worth *that* much.

Anyway, Notch is certainly correct: we WILL throw piles of money at this. IP law is the most lucrative law. IP attorneys charge, at the bottom-medium end, around $500/hour. Patent cases go on forever. Notch could very well go Bankrupt just to win his patent. He's not worth *that* much.

I don't think you realize just how much money he made.

There's also the concern that Mojang is NOT a US based company. And US patent law is currently taking a drubbing for it's attempts to enforce it's will on a global level. See also, New Zealand. I wouldn't be surprised to see Sweden laugh this right out of court.

Anyway, Notch is certainly correct: we WILL throw piles of money at this. IP law is the most lucrative law. IP attorneys charge, at the bottom-medium end, around $500/hour. Patent cases go on forever. Notch could very well go Bankrupt just to win his patent. He's not worth *that* much.

Correction: You *SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED* to patent vague concepts.

You most certainly CAN obtain a patent for vague concepts - otherwise, IP patents would not exist. Amazon holds the "One-Click" patent, which is just "Not requiring that the user enter all of their data again when buying something." In order for that to not be a concept, it would need to patent very specific code in a specific language.

Because he's demonstrated a knack for swinging around the legal system before? If that were the case I think his tiff with Bethesda would've gone differently.

Yeah, but the Bethesda case was muddy. I could see some poor blind grandma picking up Skyrim instead of Scrolls, like her grandson wanted. Poor kid...

This is purely some bastard trying to steal money from people who earned it. Even EA is preferable to this cancerous blob. I would literally buy a round-trip plane ticket to Texas just to dance on his grave when he dies. Which will hopefully be soon, and of starvation.

Wait, he's suing on a Concept but not actual technology that "he" created? How the hell is THAT possible!?

Given what he's suing that mean ALL electronic company's should get sued if this idiot wins, tell me folks what is a password OR data encryption? wouldn't THAT fall under that so-called "patent" without getting off his ass to actually MAKE something to get infringed on?

You most certainly CAN obtain a patent for vague concepts - otherwise, IP patents would not exist. Amazon holds the "One-Click" patent, which is just "Not requiring that the user enter all of their data again when buying something." In order for that to not be a concept, it would need to patent very specific code in a specific language.

evilneko:I'd call this guy a patent troll too, but apparently it's against the rules to call someone a troll.

So I'll just call him an asshole instead.

Actually the term patent troll comes from different origins than internet troll. A net troll trys to draw attention or evoke a response. A patent troll does no such thing. Patent trolls are specific in that they hold on to patents and sue companies over patents to make money. Many times such companies called patent trolls do nothing more but sue people over patents.

What this company is doing is classic. They are using a software patent, which to even engineers those patents make little sense, and they are doing it in texas, where patent cases are easy to win in.

So yeah, go ahead can call this guy a patent troll, because this is exactly what they are. Trolls.

90sgamer:Anyway, Notch is certainly correct: he WILL throw piles of money at this. IP law is the most lucrative law. IP attorneys charge, at the bottom-medium end, around $500/hour. Patent cases go on forever. Notch could very well go Bankrupt just to win his patent. He's not worth *that* much.

This isn't two multibillion dollar tech companies going to the mat to protect their market share. Patent trolls have different incentives, they want to make a profit directly off the lawsuit. Notch only has to put up enough resistance, relative to the worth of Minecraft for Android, to prove this isn't worth their time.